Just random thoughts on world of Warcraft, MMO's in general and anything else I feel like blogging about.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Two variables of raiding personalities. . .

This is me admitting I was wrong, partially. In my last post I blatantly stereotyped raiding personalities. Like any stereotype, they do apply to people, they're just not absolute (I'm a jew who works in the finance industry, I should understand stereotypes, go figure). I am hereby proposing a modification to my previous statement.

There are two variables to raiding: Motivation and Socialization (call them whatever you want, the meaning will become clear). Anyone who raids, obviously has both because you can't raid by yourself (I don't think) and since you're raiding in the first place, you obviously have motivation.

Motivation is the degree of your desire to improve and experience content. I understand part of this improvement tends t0wards the acquisition of gear. In and of itself, nothing wrong. I personally have a low motivation because, well I like easy tasks, with a minimum of work. There are plenty of players I know with extremely high motivation who are very socially dedicated, so to stereotype was wrong.

The other side of the coin is socialization. How connected are you with people? How much do you put them before yourself. Again, it is a continuum with completely self centeredness on one end, and saintly altruism on the other.

Now, people who have both high motivation and high socialization, those are normally your GM's, super active members of guilds, major players. On the other end of the spectrum are people with both low motivation and socialization, also not a problem, no one really cares if they aren't motivated to improve, they aren't very socially connected. The problem comes when someone is disproportionately high on either area. High motivation but not socialization are the guild jumpers and loot ninjas. High socialization but low motivation are the "please please please run me through everything" players.

I can admit when I'm wrong, it is one of my favorite parts about blogging. I also probably think more clearly with feedback and when not at work.